Originally Posted by
IanWorthington
Annoyingly, it would seem that AA has put a crazy price rise on one of my oft-flown TP-harvesting routes (I'm taking that personally), and I'm looking for an alternative. The best I can come up with though, so far, involves two separate AA tickets, ...-LON-...-LAX and LAX-...-BOG with all the exposure to irrops that that entails.
I read
here that "If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the minimum compensation doubles (400% of your one-way fare, or $1,550, whichever amount is lower).", which suggests that AA would very much want to keep delays under 2/4 hours. Yet
BTS shows delays into LAX in 2023 of up to 33 hours.
If you guys were booking separate tickets through LAX, how many hours would you want between flights to make sure everything doesn't go pear-shared? Given AA's recent announcement that only AAdvantage members will get favorable irrops rerouting would you want a full 2 days between flights?
The ...s seem to indicate you'll be connecting somewhere (apt with TP runs). It depends on your tolerance for risk, and your overall budget. I'd say at least 5 hours between flights, which allows for the 4 hour comp to kick in to soften the cost of rebooking on one's own. With the exception of the past month, LAX has fair weather, so that's not an issue, just not sure what your additional hidden airports are (the more likely of bad weather, the more I'd pad).
Are you able to book a multi-city ticket, or use something like matrix to force the routes you want? I've been able to easily get 4 different fare components on one AA ticket before.